Chapter Text
A tired-looking girl sits restrained in the basement of a police station with her parents at her side, holding her hand as they make her promise to come back.
An old policeman goes through the standard spiel all those non-legacies hear before their first trial. “First trials are usually fair,” “check your aspect first,” “There is no useless aspect” and all that stuff.
The girl thinks back to a promise she made to her younger sister to calm her nerves.
“When I become an awakened, I’ll take you on a tour of the awakened academy. You always loved those webtoons, right?”
The girl smiles as exhaustion overcomes her.
‘I hope I get a useful aspect. I wanna get rich and retire early.’
In the darkness, a faintly familiar voice rings out.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
[---------------------------------------------------------------]
Diana dreamt of snow.
Snow and ice blanketed everything as far as the eye could see. Frozen peaks littered the frosty tundra as volcanoes spewed ash far off in the distance.
In the dim light of a faint moon, ruins faintly littered the land as terrifying nightmare creatures scavenge the pale landscape for prey. An unnaturally cold wind blows through the tundra as a distant storm brews far off in the distance.
Faint echoes of what civilization had once been here lay slowly smothered beneath the unrelenting and all-encompassing cold.
Suddenly, the world changed. The faint moon fell over the horizon as a distant sun rose from the west. Snowflakes rose from the ground into the clouds above. Ice melted into rising rain and growing rivers. The nightmare creatures rapidly disappear, fading away far faster than Diana could comprehend, as a different kind of life began bleeding into the pallid landscape.
Diana studied the rewinding landscape in amazement as the frozen world seemed to be regaining life. Hundreds of years passed in a moment as green overtook the white as the glory of the lost ruins revealed itself under the fading snow. Amidst the verdant landscape, vast forests, and fallen cities, a small but striking color bloomed. Red appeared within the landscapes, blood poured from battlefields.
War claimed the land.
Bloody battles littered the enchanting landscape as humans battled against all kinds of beasts.
A giant, spiderlike creature looms over the landscape, its gargantuan figure casting a deep shadow over a forest. A gold crown rests atop its head, and a pair of mothlike wings rests attached to its abdomen.
On a path in the midst of a forest, Diana saw a supply caravan, torn apart and surrounded by bodies, monsters and a tyrant. A shiver ran down her spine.
The bodies rose to their feet and healed, the caravan repaired itself, and monsters retreated backwards.
Time slowed, stopped, and resumed normally.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
‘How the hell am I supposed to beat this?’
Diana looked around at her surroundings, at the supply caravan behind her soon to be ravaged by beasts, at the soldiers around the caravan who will fall to the beasts, and at the soldier on a pale horse next to her holding the chain connected to her collar– ‘Wait What?!’
‘I have a collar?! What's going on?!
Oh right, I should check my aspect’
Diana called on the knowledge that countless webtoons have taught her and concentrated on the word “status” in her head. And as she did, numerous shimmering runes appeared. They were written in a language long lost to time, yet their meaning appeared in her head with perfect clarity.
She looked at the runes to describe her aspect… and almost fell over.
‘Oh, that is a load of bullshit.’
***
Name: Diana
True Name:
Rank: Aspirant.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Lunar Mark] [Spark of Divinity] [Eye of the Hunt]
Aspect: [Blood Seeker].
Aspect Description: [Blood Seekers distantly bear the lineage of the beast god. Captives of a fallen kingdom, these prized descendants were useful navigators near the end of the Doom War, nothing more.]
‘How the hell am I supposed to fight off a pack of nightmare creatures as a chained navigator?
Maybe my attributes will help?’
She checks her attributes in the hope that she’ll have at least some good attributes to help her not die when the horde that she saw when time was rewinding arrives.
[Lunar Mark] Attribute Description: "You bear the mark of the moon. In the light of the moon, your blood runs stronger, your Essence recovers faster."
[Spark of Divinity] Attribute Description: "Every fire starts from a spark. Somewhere deep within your soul, a radiant spark shines with divine light."
[Eye of the Hunt] Attribute Description: "You perceive more than others. Born of the hunt, deep within your blood lie instincts carved through generations."
‘Yea, this does not help, I am so cooked–'
“Seeker, what happened?”
The voice of the horseback soldier next to her interrupts her thoughts. Diana looks at the soldier and notices a look of concern on her face.
‘Does she care about me–’
“What did you sense?” spoke the soldier, as a bead of sweat formed on her brow.
‘Oh right, I'm supposed to be the navigator. What should I do?’
“I sense, uh, danger.”
“Danger!?”
The soldier’s anxiety grew as more sweat began to appear on her face.
‘Maybe I can get these guys to turn around.’
“I sense that, soon, a horde of beasts will descend upon this caravan.” Spoke Diana slowly, trying her best to sound like one of those fortune tellers she sees on the TV.
“I have to tell the captain!” The horseback soldier fell back from the head of the formation closer to the caravan. Diana hurried behind trying to avoid getting pulled by the chained collar connecting her to the soldier.
As they approach the caravan, they draw closer to another horseback soldier, this one wearing a full set of armor atop a looming red horse. The captain had an imposing air about him and carried two blades, one of which was unsheathed. The captain had a stern voice and appeared to be arguing with… ‘his sword?’.
“ANSWER ME, BLADE!!! WHAT LIES FOR ME AMIDST THE TAPESTRY!?”
The sword was rather strange, as the blade seemed to be carved from solid stone, while the hilt seemed to be made of a deep purple carved gemstone.
“Captain–”
“YOU KEEP SPEAKING OF THE FUTURE, YET YOU DENY ME KNOWLEDGE OF MY OWN!”
“Captain” The soldier spoke again, a bit louder this time.
“IT HAS BEEN YEARS, BLADE, I HAVE OFFERED YOU EVERYTHING I COULD GIVE! ANSWER ME!!!’
“Captain!” The soldier looks like she's beginning to lose patience.
‘I can't laugh, I must not laugh. I have a chain around my neck, and this guy is wielding two swords. I have to not laug–'
“Unworthy?, UNWORTHY!?, BLADE, I HAVE RIGHTFULLY WON THEE FROM DUELING THE CHAMPION OF NOCTURNE! I HAVE BUILT THIS LEGION FROM THE GROUND UP! I AM THE MOST RENOWNED KNIGHT IN THE KINGDOM OF GELFORD! YET YOU DEEM ME UNWOR–”
“CAPTAIN!!! LISTEN TO ME!”
The captain flinched.
‘My stomach hurts, I might fall over. If this keeps going on, I might lose my head.’
“Ah, Lieutenant Tanya, sorry about that. What happened?” The captain spoke softly and stiffly, as if wary of something.
‘Is he... afraid of her?’
“Captain, the seeker is sensing a pack of beasts will be upon us soon.”
“A pack? How large?”
Diana tried to control her facial expression as the captain turned to look at her.
“I’m not sure on the amount, I just know that soon they will be upon this caravan.”
“Captain, should we retreat?”
A loud thump sounded in the distance. Everyone seemed to pause whatever they were doing, carefully listening for another. Diana wasn’t sure what caused that reaction but decided to ask about it later.
When it became clear there wasn’t another, the captain answered.
"No, Tanya, we’re too deep in the forest to turn back. We shouldn’t rush forward either, we’re too far from Atropos, which would leave us too open. Let's settle down and prepare for the attack. We’d have better chances weathering them if we prepare.”
The captain turned towards the rest of the troops and went to give them orders to prepare for battle, leaving Diana and Lieutenant Tanya alone.
“So about the captain and the sword…”
“You do not know the half of it.”
Tanya sounded rather exasperated, so Diana decided not to pry, well, at least not now.
‘I have to focus on something else. Was that mark always there?’
She noticed a mark on the back of her right hand that looked like a blood red crescent moon.
‘Is this the lunar mark the attribute was talking about?’
[---------------------------------------------------------------]
A couple hours later, night fell, and nothing happened.
The soldier prepared for an attack, improvised barricades, defensive formation, setting of traps, and readying watch for whatever horde would be upon the caravan. Setting up patrols on the edge of the path and partly into the forest to spot danger before it arrives.
Yet, nothing came.
They stood on guard for hours, they watched the surrounding forest with bated breath. Eventually they decided to set up camp as the last light fell over the horizon.
Occasionally, loud thumps would sound from somewhere in the forest, causing everyone to pause for a few moments before continuing what they were doing.
Eventually the soldiers got bored at the hours of waiting for something unknown to attack and came up with different things to pass the time. The ones in the rear guard were making bets on how many were going to appear. The first line were making and taking bets on when the beasts would appear, those who betted on any time before nightfall have lost their money and are now singing their troubles away, to the detriment of anyone there capable of hearing.
The captain was once again arguing with his sword, quite the comedic distraction for the rest of the soldiers. Diana had managed to get Lieutenant Tanya to start rambling stories about the captain and the allegedly sentient sword.
“I didn't believe it either, but let me tell ya, he let me hold it one time, and the damn thing spoke to me. It felt so uncanny to hear my voice so unfamiliarly.
“Then this lunatic told me after I held it that the sword has a history of driving its wielder insane. No heads up, no warning beforehand. Couldn't sleep that night, as revenge, I set his hair on fire.
“Ah, the look on his face, absolutely priceless.”
Lieutenant Tanya leant back with a nostalgic look in her eyes at that last story, like an adult reminiscing about their childhood home. The two of them had taken a seat on dirt beside the armory part of the caravan, at some point in the storytelling, Tanya decided to remove the chain connected to Diana’s collar for an unexplained reason.
“You set your captain’s hair on fire?”
“Wasn't the worst thing that's happened to him. If you ask me, his hair has never looked better.”
“Aren't you afraid of getting fired or something?”
“Nah, the two of us are too important to be kicked out of the army. I'm almost half convinced they put us in the same company to keep each other in check.”
“Well… where did the sword come from?”
“Ah, that, no one knows. Some say it was forged by a daemon, some say it was the legacy of a god. All anyone knows is that wielders of the sword eventually become great warriors, and also the going insane thing.
“The sword is also said to know the future. Captain claims that the first thing about the future the sword told him is that ‘at the end of this war, all the gods and all the daemons will lie dead.’”
‘This sword predicted the end of the Doom War?’
Diana decided to pay closer attention to the sword next time she's near it.
“Very foreboding, I know. I'm still not convinced of its prophecies because, based on what the captain and the sword are arguing about right now, the thing can't tell our future.”
“How did the captain get the–”
A loud thump sounded in the distance.
Once again, everyone paused what they were doing to listen for any other thumps. After a couple seconds had passed Diana decided to change her question.
“What was that about?”
Tanya looked confused at the question, as if that was something Diana should already know.
‘Did I mess up?’
“Did you forget? That's the Spider Monarch.”
“Spider Monarch?”
“The great beast roaming this forest, it showed up out of nowhere a month ago on the path to Atropos. Didn’t you hear it when the informant was telling everyone about it at the start of this mission?”
A bead of sweat was forming on Diana’s brow.
“Must’ve slipped my mind.”
Before Tanya could respond, a couple voices from the first line of defense catches both of their attention.
“I’m changing my bet, my new bet is that these beasts aren’t coming at all and the seeker is lying to us.”
Diana’s blood ran cold.
“Well, I normally wouldn’t count this, however, if ya wanna hand me your money, who am I to say no?”
“Well, it’s been hours and yet nothing happened. How long are we going to wait then? Till dawn? A couple more days? If that’s the case, I’m beginning to sense something as well. All of us are gonna die, don’t believe me? Wait like eighty years, you’ll see that I can sense danger as well.”
“Ok Mr. Oracle, nice little prophecy, assuming none of us awakens within those eighty years. When that time comes to pass, I’ll come to you to predict the weather.”
“Yea yea, as if you’d save enough to buy a farm. I’m gonna head out on patrol duty, maybe these singing lunatics are the dangerous horde that would descend on us. Gods and Daemons know, their screeching could kill any horde.”
Diana watched as the soldier picked up a small hand-held lantern and walked off to join the patrol. She knew most of the soldiers trusted their captain’s decision, but she doubts that those same soldiers trust her. She was collared and chained after all, she assumed she was a captive based on her aspect description, but the captain and the lieutenant seemed to trust her judgment more than she would be with a captive.
She wasn’t sure whether to hope that that horde would come here sooner or that they wouldn’t come at all. First nightmares usually end with the death of a relatively strong enemy, but she wasn’t sure whether she’d rather deal with whatever would lead a horde to this caravan or the captain and the lieutenant should they prove to be the only conflict she encounters.
In the end she decided to put off the thought for later.
‘There’s no point stressing, I can’t do anything right now.’
It will be her problem when she can do something about it. What she can do now is listen to funny stories.
“So, it sounds like you and the captain go way back. What’s the story there?”
Tanya looked off into the forest and gained a thousand-yard stare.
“Seeker, this man has been an annoyance I’ve known my whole life. You’d think that two master swordsmen from the same village would enjoy each others’ company, but if you ask any of us, there’s never been a greater annoyance than the other.
“That man has always been trying to compete with me and would get twice as annoying whenever he won. Me and that lunatic used to–”
While Tanya was telling her story, Diana had a small feeling in the back of her head that compelled her to watch that loud soldier from earlier.
The soldier had just met up with one on patrol and was just about to swap with him. They seemed to be having a rather animated conversation, though from that distance it couldn’t be heard by Diana.
Slight movement deeper in the treeline, looks like another scout on patrol.
‘Something feels off, that armor is way more unkempt than the rest of the soldiers.’
Just as she was about to call the abnormality out, more movement catches her eye.
A gigantic, pale, and spindly arm reaches from beyond the dark forest and grasps the loud soldier within its clawed grip. The soldier barely had time to react before the pale hand crushes him within its grasp. The rest of the soldiers ready their weapons as a large pale figure crawls from the dark forest beyond, revealing a humanoid beast with a hollowed, abyss-like visage that swallows all light like an endless pit. Long crimson hair messily flowed from the beast's head like a river of blood.
‘That thing is the size of a truck.’ Diana would've marveled at it if it didn't fill her with fear.
The beast crawled forward on four arms and two legs, each of its six limbs ending on clawed digits that left deep grooves in the soil beneath.
Humanoid figures walked out from the forest, if not for the abyssal hole where their faces would be, they would have been indistinguishable from normal humans. They wore a range of clothing from a suit of armor to simple farmwear. Some carried swords, some carried scythes, some carried axes, and some were barehanded. Some of them showed signs of injury, while others seemed unharmed.
The captain was the first to react.
“LIEUTENANT AND I WILL HANDLE THE GIANT! MEN, HOLD THE–” The captain barely had any time to give out orders before the previously crawling giant lunged forward, reaching to the rest of the group.
Diana felt bad for the two guys closest to the giant, against a smaller opponent, they might’ve had a more even fight however, the giant’s hands alone were half the size they were. The giant’s claws being around the size of their drawn blades also didn’t help, after all, two blades against ten isn’t exactly a fair fight.
They were gone before the captain could reach the giant.
Both blades drawn, the Captain blocked one of the second pair of arms before they could attack more soldiers while the Lieutenant caught the other. They both got there so fast that Diana didn’t even notice when they left.
As the two pairs of arms let go to attack, the Captain suddenly ducked downwards as the Lieutenant’s blade seemed to glow for a moment, then a slightly muffled bang sounded through the battlefield as the giant suddenly was launched backwards away from the Lieutenant against the invading horde, crushing a couple in the process.
Two swords began to rise from the caravan behind Diana and launched to where the Captain was before hovering in circles around him, as if on standby.
More and more of the hollow-faced figures walked out of the woods, a slow but continuous flow of these figures appeared from the treeline as the giant began to get up, seemingly only mildly inconvenienced by the force that sent it flying just a couple moments earlier.
The captain got up and continued what he was saying earlier.
“Hold the line, rangers, prioritize the armored ones before they reach the frontlines.” He spoke strong and deliberately, not once turning to look away from the giant.
The twin swords hovering around the Captain suddenly launched forward, cutting down the closest beasts in front of him as he and the Lieutenant rushed forward behind them to clash with the giant, cutting down any beast in their path to make it there.
Diana didn’t really have much to do or any skills to help supplement the situation, so she decided the best thing she could do was not interfere and observe.
Those in the frontline quickly closed the gap in the shield wall caused by the giant as the rangers in the backline opened fire upon the horde. A volley of arrows fells multiple of the hollow-faced figures as the frontline cuts down those who get too close.
The hollow-faced figures seemed to vary in terms of intelligence and skill, as some swung their weapons wildly at the soldiers or just lunged at them to little effect, others seemed to hang back, seemingly observing the situation. Some showed notable proficiency with their weapons, catching some of the soldiers off guard.
The figures were struck down quite swiftly as they approached the frontlines, but with every one that fell, two more seemed to take their place as the stream of enemies poured from the treeline.
In the midst of the horde the giant was clashing against the Captain and the Lieutenant, with numerous of the figures getting cut down or crushed as collateral damage. The figures' variation in intelligence seemed evident here as well, as most of the figures around them attempted to attack the two knights to no effect, while some seemed to be blatantly avoiding that area, heading towards the caravan or hanging back observing.
Diana watched the figures with interest, focusing on the ones waiting to attack instead of rushing against the soldiers, attempting to figure out what they were waiting for. Some were a short distance from the frontlines, watching with their weapons readied. Others watched further away in the treeline, their unraised weapons obscured by the flow of rushing figures overtaking them, watching the soldiers’ defense.
‘What opportunity? The giant is too distracted to break the line of soldiers.’
She looked further towards the figures lingering in the treeline, watching them in turn.
Suddenly the distant figures shifted their stance to a different one, not of one who carries a sword or spear, one similar to an–
“ARCHERS–” Diana yells out to the soldiers, hoping they had enough time to heed her warning.
They didn’t.
Before the soldiers moved to protect themselves, arrows ripped through half the archers near the caravan.
Before they even hit the ground, a second volley disrupts the frontline, striking where the defense was weakest, making small breaks in the lines.
Diana watched some of the archers around her fall and immediately tried to find the nearest large shield so she could cover herself. Not finding any in the caravan behind her, she rushes to the next one as she watches the hollow-faced figures and notices something that made her blood run cold.
‘They haven’t moved.”
Of the static figures, the ones in the treeline were firing arrows upon the caravan, but the ones waiting a short distance away hadn't moved in the slightest. They still stood a short distance from the frontlines, weapons readied, unmoving, waiting.
‘Why haven’t they moved? What are they still waiting for? What am I missing–”
A loud roar sweeps through the battlefield, almost humanlike but slightly bestial. Diana almost felt a slight pressure when the roar reached her. She felt a slight buzz in the back of her head which disappeared when she focused on it. She looked to where the roar came from and found the giant fighting the slightly disorientated pair of the Captain and Lieutenant that it had been clashing with earlier. As she turned to look she also spotted some of the soldiers pause for a moment before continuing to defend, albeit less easily than when they started.
‘Could it be a mind attack? But it didn’t seem that effecti–’ Movement catches her eye.
Still not the waiting hollow-faced figures a short distance away but somewhere else. The corpse of the loud soldier from earlier twitched, as did the two soldiers initially crushed by the giant and the felled soldiers by the enemy archers and frontliners who were caught off guard.
Slight twitches as their wounds seemed to partly heal, their visage suddenly crumpled inwards as a void appeared where their faces would be.
‘A tyrant!’
They moved before Diana could warn the soldiers.
They lunged at the nearest soldiers, grappling with a number of the remaining archers and attacking the frontliners from behind, further widening the gaps as the invading figures rushed them. As the frontline was disrupted from both sides, the figures that waited just a short distance away rushed the overwhelmed soldiers, cutting them down swiftly and overwhelming the second line as the archers were caught off guard by risen corpses accosting them.
Diana quickly rushes to the next carriage as she watches the figures clashing with the soldiers and the tyrant clashing with the leaders.
The soldiers were putting up the best fight they could, but they weren’t going to last long. Their front line has broken as they received assaults from both sides alongside being the targets of enemy archers. All the hollow-faced figures were in motion now, the waiting warriors just a short distance away were now split between further surrounding the remaining front lines and accosting the second like to make it to the archers.
The Captain and the Lieutenant were still engaged with the tyrant, while they might’ve been momentarily disorientated by the roar, the tyrant also stopped moving beforehand, letting them get some time to catch their bearings.
Small wounds and notable scratches showed on the tyrant’s skin, but the tyrant was still fighting as it had earlier. The Captain and the Lieutenant showed more exhaustion by comparison, albeit a small amount, their movements were slower than when they started. Even the Lieutenant had stopped doing the burst attack she had been doing earlier to launch around the tyrant, likely to conserve her essence. The captain remained almost the same as when he started, clashing with two swords held in both of his hands, attacking with two swords hovering around him. Sometimes the tyrant would catch him off guard and one of the two blades he wielded, the metal sword, would get knocked out of his hands. One of the flying swords would then land in his hand before the fallen one would begin to hover, taking its place. The Captain seemed to put more care into holding on to the stone blade than the other one for some reason.
Diana reached the next caravan. This one didn’t have weapons either, just food. Looking ahead, she finds the path to the next caravan has been cut off by more figures attacking the archers. Looking back, she sees the same behind her.
‘What the hell do I–’
More movement catches her eye.
In the treeline behind where the two leaders were fighting the tyrant, she sees some movement amidst the trees close to the Lieutenant. Different from the rest of the figures, larger.
The Lieutenant parries a clawed hand, distracting her from the movement behind her.
Diana’s eyes widen as she yells as loud as she can.
“TANYA!!!”
Tanya, still parrying the claw, wasn’t able to heed the warning. Yet something recklessly rushed to heed it anyway.
The Captain, disregarding his previous caution, rushed to deflect the sudden claw of a second tyrant emerging from the woods. This tyrant had a mane of black instead of red.
The Captain, rushing to protect Tanya, barely deflected the claw away from causing harm to Tanya. However, due to the rush, he wasn’t able to deal with it as well as before and ended up having his dual blades knocked away by the force of the attack alongside sustaining a notable injury in his right arm.
Both of them ended up lodged in the ground right in front of Diana, startling her so much that she jumped and accidentally hit the back of her head against the caravan behind her.
Rubbing the back of her head, she watched as the steel sword unlodged itself and flew back to the Captain, his injured arm slightly glowing as it appeared to mend itself. The stone sword, however, remained embedded in the dirt.
Diana wasn’t sure why the blade didn’t return but, judging as she was just looking for a weapon, decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and reached out to the gemstone hilt of the stone sword.
The moment her hand clasps around the sword, it explodes in a swarm of countless sparks.
The voice of the spell resounds in her head, though, a bit different than before, carrying an emotion in its tone that Diana can't pin down.
[You have received a Memory.]
‘A memory? What? That was a memo–’
“Is that Weaver’s little spell I see? So this was but a nightmare after all…”
A voice resounds in her head, one that is undoubtedly her own, yet instinctually foreign, as if a being stole her own voice to use as its own. The voice spoke in a curious and playful tone.
“What are you?”
“That’s not important right now kid, summon me and fight.”
“Wait, I need time to process thi–”
“Kid, you are about to be attacked by nightmare creatures. Read my runes later, well, unless you want them to be the thing you see, that is.”
Diana shivered for a moment and summoned the sword.
“Kid, the hell is that stance? You're gonna be knocked over, and I'm going to end up flying again."
“What?”
“Plant your feet, wider stance. You're underestimating the force attacks hit with.”
She adjusts her stance.
“Better, but ideall– LEFT NOW!”
Diana dodges to the left as a hollow-faced figure lunges at where she was before, landing face-first in the dirt.
The figure tried to get up but was interrupted by a stone blade coming down on its neck.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Witness of Conquest.]
‘Witness of Conquest?”
“Good attack, almost thought I had to train an outskirts kid here.”
“You thought I was an outskirts–”
A severed head hits Diana’s foot, interrupting her question.
“A bit too much force, but we can work on that later.
“Ah, here comes another.”
Diana blocks the blade of another of the Witnesses that broke through to the backline. It put its full weight into the attack, causing Diana to stagger back for a bit but still holding strong.
“Parry, then aim for the fore–” Diana mutters as she tries to recall her training.
“Go for the neck, this isn’t one of the smart ones.”
Heeding the advice, she suddenly drops back causing the Witness to fall forward as she jams the blade in its neck.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Witness of Conquest.]
Diana looks at the battles around her. More of the soldiers have fallen, they’ve lost the coordination advantage now that the front line is gone, the second line is broken apart into groups that are steadily being surrounded, and the back line has switched from bows to swords, though a notable number had been lost in the process.
The Captain and the Lieutenant had split up, clashing two separate tyrants. While the original matchup would’ve likely resulted in the tyrant going down due to accumulated wounds, the now even battle had become unclear regarding who would eventually win.
“We’re not gonna last long, are we?” Diana wasn’t rather optimistic about being on the losing side of a battle.
“Well, as long as multiple of the smart ones don’t target us, we could probably escape.”
“So–” Diana dodges an axe-wielding Witness, causing it to lodge its axe in the caravan. “–I hear that your wielders become great warriors.” She spoke in a formal, catering voice.
“If you’re asking for assistance, I can provide it.”
She brings the sword down on the temporarily stuck Witness. Two more began to approach her, one wielded a dagger while the other was barehanded.
“Well, I would appreciate it, ideally, right now.”
“While normally I’d say something like, ‘How are you going to learn if I do everything for you?’ I think the situation is rather too pressing for that.”
“Great, what would I have to do?”
“Let me in.”
“What?”
“Just reply ‘Yes’ to that and don’t cancel it until the battle is over.
“So, I ask again, will you let me in?”
Diana thought about it for a moment, looking at the battlefield. While she has had some training, she doesn’t have any experience in actual life or death battles. She was getting lucky with the last few of the creatures being just mindless beasts, but if one of the smart ones came over, or if one of the archers targeted her while she was attacking, she wouldn’t last long. If she doesn’t have help, she’ll definitely die, if she does have this “help”, she might die. ‘Well, a chance of death implies a chance of living.’
“Okay”
For a moment the gemstone hilt glowed.
Diana wasn’t sure what changed until her legs moved their own.
Her legs propelled her to the two witnesses. Right before they were about to attack, she ducked to the side at the last moment and kicked the unarmed one into the other, knocking both of them down onto each other.
Her arms plunged the blade through both of their chests before they could react.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Witness of Conquest.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Witness of Conquest.]
“What was that?” Diana looked at the pair of bodies.
“You can stop this by moving on your own, which cuts off my access. However, I wouldn’t recommend doing so right now.”
“What are you?”
“I am just–” Her body ducks down to dodge a sudden arrow.
Her body grabs the dagger from the impaled witness. One hand on the hilt of the stone sword, the other wrapped around a dagger, her head turns to where the arrow came from.
“–just a random cursed sword so–” Her body jolts back up and, in the same motion, throws the dagger forward at the archer who attacked them.
[You have slain a dormant monster, Proselyte of Conquest]
“–so stop asking. This is all you need to know for now.”
‘Proselyte? Dormant monster? A talking cursed sword?’ “I remember reading a webtoon like this once.”
“Was it a good one?” Her body attempts to prop up one of the dead witnesses and stumbles. “Goodness, you're weak as hell.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making a shie–” Her body takes a sharp turn with the propped-up witness.
An arrow embeds itself in the corpse’s chest. “A temporary shield.” Her body, sword in one hand, corpse shield in the other, barrels to the first two defending lines.
More arrows embed themselves in the copse shield as her body runs, some come close to hitting her. More of the soldiers have fallen, not only are they outnumbered, they’re surrounded now while the archers pick them out one by one. All of the archers are either dead or have picked up a sword. ‘This isn't going to last.’
Her body rams into something with the corpse, knocking over whatever was in front of her. On her right stood an injured soldier, on her left lay the corpse of another soldier, and in front of her was a hollow-faced figure attempting to recover from the sudden impact.
Her body dives to the left as an arrow leaves a narrow cut in her arm. A hiss escapes her lips, she wasn’t sure whether it was the sword or her.
Her body rips the shield from the corpse, breaking another arrow against it, as she shields herself. “Not the biggest shield, but it’ll do for now.”
The injured soldier next to her attempts to rush the knocked-over witness.
An arrow sends him to the ground.
Her body ducks lower to avoid the arrows as she scans her surroundings.
Most of the soldiers are already down. She is close enough to the frontline that she can hear the Captain and the Lieutenant fight the tyrants. The now-downed soldier’s arm twitches. The knocked over witness has gotten up now, it’s carrying a sword and an axe. It isn’t rushing anything, it’s also looking around. This isn’t a mindless one. “Proselyte, not Witness.” Her mouth speaks thoughts similar to her own. The Proselyte looks at her.
Her body rushes it.
The axe comes first, she dodges it to the side where a sword was waiting for her.
She blocks it with her shield and strikes forward with her sword.
The proselyte throws itself back just shy of the blade’s edge. Both ready their weapons for another exchange.
A familiar roar makes Diana’s blood run cold. Humanlike, yet bestial, the roar of a tyrant. The dead soldiers begin to move.
A buzz appears at the back of her mind, stronger than before. Strong enough that she didn't notice the axe about to hit her.
Good thing she wasn't the one who had to react.
An axe meets a shield, denting the shield. A stone sword meets a metal one, neither yields. The Proselyte attempts to throw itself back again. Unfortunately for it, a hand clasps around its leg.
The downed soldier from earlier, still clinging to life, holds it in place. It moved to strike the hand. A stone sword bursts through its chest.
[You have slain a dormant monster–]
A loud thump sounds throughout the battlefield.
[–Proselyte of Conquest]
The loud and distant thump almost caused Diana to pause on instinct. She looks around and notices that she wasn't the only one who did. Not only did the Lieutenant and the Captain both seem to flinch, but both of the tyrants also seemed to slow for a moment, alongside the proselytes. Tanya’s eyes widened as she watched the tyrants, she grit her teeth.
“CAPTAIN?” The word sounded different from before, as if it carried an entirely different meaning.
The captain was silent for a moment, he looked to Lieutenant Tanya. The momentary eye contact between the two seemed to hold a whole conversation in a way that only two people who knew each other deeply could have. He turned to look at the corpses of his soldiers slowly rising to their feet and then back to the tyrant. He gritted his teeth before answering.
“Authorized” The word seemed to leave him as though it was forced out, it carried a tone of both fear and resigned acceptance.
Diana had no clue what the exchange was about but felt a shiver run down her spine at the exchange before… before fire began to flow from Tanya’s sword like a blazing river.
Flames spread around her as she clashed with the crimson-maned tyrant, they burnt the grass where she passed, and they burned the witnesses who came too close. Parts of the tyrant burnt where her blade met skin.
She dodged a slash from the tyrant and returned with one of her own. The attack mirrored the burst from earlier, sending the tyrant flying across the battlefield, leaving a trail of flames this time. She turned to the proselyte archers instead of pursuing and dived towards them with a fire-coated slash. Half of them retreated into the woods while the rest were caught within the flames.
She turned and pursued the crimson-haired tyrant, setting everything in her path alight. The, now scorching, landscape provided a small respite for the still-alive soldiers as the lines of flames created a barrier to impede the flow of enemies.
“Man, I miss fried food.”
“Sword, what the fuck?”
“When you spend millennia as a sentient sword, the dissociation from humanity will get you eventually.”
“Sword, this is a nightmare set millennia in the past. How do you know what fried food is?”
“...” The stone blade did not answer and instead lunged her body to the nearest Witness.
The Witness, seemingly distracted by the flames, wasn’t able to react before being kicked into them.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Witness of Conquest.]
Her body turns to examine her surroundings.
‘Why the fire? What are they planning?’
Flames spread all across the forest floor. Walls of fire spread across the battlefield, scorching the thralls and the tyrants as it divided the enemy forces. The radiant flames scorched the landscape and shone brightly amidst the dark forest, a searing beacon in the night.
A loud thump sounded in the distance, time seemed to slow down for a moment as every combatant who understood that sound listened amidst the clashes and the flames.
Another thump sounded in the distance.
Another followed that and another, the distant crashes growing less distant and more frequent as every second the searing beacon marred the calm dark night.
“Spider Monarch? Looks like they don’t expect to win.”
“What do you mean?”
“Listen, kid, we don’t have much time now, so I’ll make this quick.”
Her eyes turned to the soldiers engaged in combat. Most of the nightmare creatures were still fighting, but some abandoned their clashes and seemed to be running to the woods.
“The spider monarch is a great beast that is currently being lured over here by the fire. Anything still here when it arrives, will be dead. So basically–”
She turns to search for the tyrants, finding none. The Captain and the Lieutenant are just cutting down as many of the remaining nightmare creatures as fast as they can.
“Basically, those two are gambling on whether the tyrants and the Proselytes would rather choose mutually assured escape or mutually assured destruction.
“We have until the spider monarch arrives to escape.”
She lunges to the nearest Witness.
“Kid, when the fighting is over, I need you to trust me.”
[---------------------------------------------------------------]
With the flames cutting off any reinforcements and the tyrants and the Proselytes gone, weeding out the remaining Witnesses was accomplished relatively quickly.
All the remaining soldiers had to fight was just a horde of mindless beasts. The soldier's might was also boosted by the Captain and Lieutenant who were now free to cull the horde unhindered by the two tyrants.
The captain used the two hovering blades to cut down the beasts swiftly, launching from beast to beast with no downtime in between while the captain was going around healing the surviving soldiers. The Lieutenant was just setting all of the beasts in range on fire until they were all gone.
When all the beasts were gone, only the Captain, Tanya, Diana, and eight soldiers were still standing. The Captain had sent Tanya and the soldiers to gather supplies from the caravan before evacuating, leaving him alone with Diana.
Listening to the frequent thumps of the approaching great beast, she lets the sword take control.
The Captain eyes the stone blade in her hand.
“It appears you have my sword.”
“Come on now, Ivan, we both know you’re running low on fighters right now.” Her mouth spoke in a taunting tone, as if daring the captain to act.
“Blade…” The Captain’s demeanor shifted slightly, almost imperceptively.
Diana’s head moves to examine the sword.
“I have more experience than everyone here combined, most would consider turning that down, in a situation like this, to be a bad move.”
“Am I supposed to believe that you wouldn’t run the first chance you can?”
“If I was going to run, I wouldn’t be here. Besides, I can run anytime I want.”
Her eyes lock with the captain’s.
“Mundane my current host may be, I’m still able to kill everyone here.”
‘What are you doing Blade?’ The blade asked her to trust it but this doesn’t seem to be going well.
“Blade, I’m willing to make a bargain. You work with us until we reach Atropos, and when we arrive, you’re free to do whatever.”
“Ever the negotiator, Ivan, while I could do all those normally–”
One of the captain’s hovering blades stopped moving.
“I’ll accept your bargain, consider it a parting gift.”
Her body turns and walks to the caravan. She walked to the nearest one and paused as the stone blade stopped the possession.
“Up to you for now kid, I’m tired and I think the soldiers are almost done now. Let’s go pick a horse, we don’t have much time.” The blade’s voice resounded in her head, exactly the same as her own yet instinctually foreign.
“What the hell was that about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why antagonize him? He could have killed us.”
“Of all the users I've had, he's the only one who never let me in. So I've come to a single conclusion, he fears me. While he does show pride in his own abilities, it's not to a point where he wouldn't seek others’ help when needed. Unless, he sees the influence of said others to be a detriment.”
The blade was silent for a moment but continued right as Diana was about to say something.
“Besides, now you can blame everything you do on me. Now, stop dawdling, pick a horse.”
She turned to the caravan without replying.
“You do know what a horse is, right?”
“Of course I know what a horse is. Who wouldn’t?”
“Don’t worry about that. Do you know how to ride one?”
“...”
“Right, I forgot most of the wildlife are dead after the spell. Just follow my instructions."
The voice of the blade sighs. “Man, I hope this nightmare ends already.”
“You and me both,” Diana replies.
[---------------------------------------------------------------]
On a galloping pale horse following just behind the Lieutenant at the center of the evacuating soldiers, Diana turns around to look at the caravan growing further and further in the distance. The loud thumps in the distance grow stronger, soon heralding the arrival of a great beast to descend upon the burning area amidst the solitary night.
Bodies littered the ground, soon to be consumed by the flames, the caravan and most of its supplies lie abandoned to face the approaching calamity.
Beyond the flames in the forest she catches glimpses of figures looking back at her, unaware of the incoming danger.
“Do you think tyrants are watching us in the forest?” She whispers, audible only to her.
“They left as soon as they could.” The sword replies before continuing. “They’re waiting for the right time.”
Diana turns to look ahead. The Captain thinks that they’ll make it to the city of Atropos in around two days.
‘We just have to survive until then.’
Now that she isn’t busy, she decides to check up on the runes of the blade.
‘What the?’
***
Memory: [Unsevered String].
Memory Rank: Ascended
Memory Type: Weapon
Memory Description: [Once a being sought to defy fate yet found themselves bound by it. The being came up with a plan to pull a soul from beyond the weave, one who had seen the tapestry guiding their world. The being tore the soul from beyond the weave yet found no sufficient vessel to sustain it. The being, feeling the soul slowly slipping out of their grasp, forged the soul into a blade and forged it until the vessel could hold.]